THE FRONT ROW with JASON ELLIOTT: Tefft: An impact felt far beyond St. Maries

It was halftime, and even miles away, Craig Tefft just knew.

“When you turned the game on, it was just like a normal game,” Bryan Chase said. “Craig knew what plays we were running and everything.”

St. Maries was trailing rival Kellogg 18-16 at halftime of the Central Idaho League opener for both schools last Friday in St. Maries.

“We’re still there talking and whooping it up and Craig’s phone is going off,” Chase said. “And it’s (senior running back) Trey (Gibson) telling him that this game is for him.”

After texting his coach at halftime, Gibson ran for two touchdowns in the second half, and finished with 391 yards rushing and four touchdowns for the Lumberjacks, who shut out the Wildcats after intermission of a 30-18 win.

“When we heard it was Trey texting him, we were thinking ‘what are you doing?” said Chase, the boys basketball and golf coach at St. Maries High. “But Craig definitely lit up and was proud of the team for responding like they did.”

Chase, along with former St. Maries assistant coach Chase Bennett — now the head boys golf coach at Coeur d’Alene High — watched the game at the Schneidmiller Hospice House in Hayden with Tefft, who passed away on Tuesday following a 10-month battle with colon cancer.

“I think the last three games, I’d been with him at his house or hospice and told him I’d be there for Friday’s game,” Chase said. “We had such a good time. Kristi (Chase’s fiancée) and Jenny (Tefft’s wife) were sitting outside to give us some time with him, and they almost had to come in and tell us to be quiet wondering what was going on in there.”

The three also were texting with current Kellogg boys basketball coach Mike Martin during the game.

“We were dinking around and texted Mike that it was 118 days until the first Kellogg-St. Maries (basketball) game,” Chase said. “Craig was pumping his fist and so excited. He was a close friend of Craig’s also and was getting a kick out of it too.”

TEFFT, 47, coached football at St. Maries for 13 years, winning the state 2A title in 2016. He also coached baseball at the school for 15 years.

“Craig was such an easy going coach,” Chase said. “Sometimes, I’m that way too, but Craig was so even keeled. Craig just believed that if it was meant to be, it was meant to be.”

St. Maries appeared in the state football playoffs nine times under Tefft.

“It was amazing; his kids always played so hard for him,” Chase said. “He just built relationships with kids that I’ve never seen, and those kids enjoyed him.”

Even when the coach had to discipline them.

“We have a lot of kids from rural areas and had some kids from Fernwood that weren’t doing their leg lifts,” Chase said. “So he drafted up some posters with their photos and hung them in the post office. They had their photos that said 'Wanted: For not getting their leg lifts in.’ He’d tell them he had seen their photos in the post office and laugh about it. He had such a way to connect with the kids.”

For years in the three-team Central Idaho League, often times St. Maries had a bye week in between games with Grangeville and Orofino, a bye which fell during the first week of hunting season.

“Craig always organized a coaches retreat when they had the bye week, the first week of hunting season,” Chase said. “And he’d have all the coaches up there. There’d be 12 to 15 coaches, and we’d sit and play cards, hunt and have such a good time. He just created a camaraderie with the coaches. We’d have prizes for the biggest buck, and were always up by 5 or 6 to go hunting.”

It was a tradition started when Tefft was an assistant football coach at Kendrick High under head coach Kevin Driskill, the current Lewiston High principal.

“Everyone would just get together and have fun,” Driskill said. “A few years ago, Tefft said something about coming up and going with the guys at St. Maries. He told me they’re a lot of fun to hang out with. When I got into coaching, I thought I knew more than anyone else. But you’ve got to put the time in, and Craig started doing the same at St. Maries. But those relationships you build is what makes you a good coach.”

Driskill added that although he was unable to attend the 2016 title game, he made sure Tefft knew how proud he was of him.

“I was following along at work and thought the game was long over,” Driskill said. “I’d called him, and he was still on the field and I was the first one he’d talked to after the game. He was just so proud of those kids.”

Greg Rouse, who had been defensive coordinator at St. Maries for the past eight seasons, took over as head coach for Tefft at the start of this season.

“One thing I always liked about Craig was that he was a players coach,” Rouse said. “He had a great connection with the kids. In football, we’d ride together in a separate car than the team with the equipment in the trailer and the players rode on the bus. On those drives, we’d do our postgame analysis of the game, and I’ll miss that a lot. A lot of our plans, we figured out on that drive home. On our drive home from our playoff game last year, we were already planning the next season and what camps we were going to go to.”

“Being the athletic director and in charge of the coaches, they all really got along,” said former St. Maries athletic director Todd Gilkey, who retired in the spring. “Being able to relax and get away, just talk and know it wasn’t going to go any further than that. Craig and I talked a lot about life, and I’ll really miss not having that with him.”

Oftentimes, Gilkey helped Tefft with painting lines at the football and baseball field.

“I bounced a lot of things off of him because I knew whatever I told him wasn’t going to go any further,” Gilkey said. “Craig had some really good wisdom and I’m really going to miss his friendship.”

Services are scheduled for next Saturday at 11 a.m. at the St. Maries Nazarene Church.

Bennett coached alongside Tefft at St. Maries in baseball and football from 2011-15.

“Coach Tefft had a contagious, positive energy about him that unless you had the opportunity to meet him is difficult to explain,” Bennett said. “Kind, funny, loyal and passionate are all in his coaching philosophy. There were many times we had more players than uniforms and coach would never discuss cutting a player that wanted to be a part of one of his programs, regardless of the player’s ability. If a student at St. Maries wanted to play, he would find them a helmet or uniform.”

DURING THE 2016 football season, St. Maries went 12-0, capturing the state title by beating Declo 31-8 at Holt Arena in Pocatello. The previous week, St. Maries, also at Holt Arena, got past Bear Lake 20-14 in the semifinals.

“I remember making the trips to Pocatello for both the semifinals and finals,” Chase said. “And it’s crazy how many people from the community went down for that, then followed in our footsteps in 2021 (when the Lumberjacks boys won the state 2A basketball title). That drive back from Pocatello was just a celebration and weight off his shoulder.”

“You could tell he was excited after the game,” Gilkey said. “After that game, he went up to each kid and congratulated them. Once again, there’s a guy worrying more about the kids than himself. He just wanted each kid to know how important they were to him and the team. He didn’t do any of this for himself, and that’s pretty special in this world.”

Tefft was an assistant alongside Driskill when Kendrick won state titles in 2000 and 2001. Tefft, also a graduate of Kendrick in 1995, was a three-year starter at quarterback for the Tigers.

“Craig was a quiet leader on the field,” Driskill said. “He was so hard on himself and I never really had to get on him. One time, we were playing at Highland (Craigmont), and he completed a pass, but it was a little underthrown, but the receiver made a great one-handed catch. Craig came off the field pissing and moaning, but he was a perfectionist. A lot of coaches, either you love or hate them. But Craig was the nicest, funniest guy. I don’t think he’s ever met someone he disliked. He just had that special quality in life, and that’s what made him so special.”

TEFFT ALSO coached baseball at St. Maries for 15 seasons before stepping down last spring.

In a small school like St. Maries, oftentimes Chase and Tefft competed for the same athletes to do either golf or baseball in the spring, in addition to workouts during football and basketball season.

“We’d always work around each other's schedules for camps and tournaments,” Chase said. “Our football players were allowed to go to open gyms and morning basketball. Whenever I would ask about the kids and injuries with basketball, he would comment that they are getting extra conditioning in, and loved it. He was always the type of guy that looked at the glass half full. It was easy to talk about our student athletes and come up with ideas that would work to motivate them. Some of my best memories with Craig were just going for a drive after practice to the mountaintop and visiting about our kids.”

When Tefft was diagnosed with cancer last November, area schools came together to wear ‘Lumberjack Strong’ shirts in honor of Tefft during basketball games.

Even the biggest rival, Kellogg.

“Craig had a unique relationship with the Luna twins (Riply and Kolby of Kellogg, who are currently football walk-ons at Miami),” Chase said. “Both of those guys knew just how much of a Miami fan Craig was. The first thing they did when they came back was load him up with some merchandise.”

“Craig, just because of the person he was, took our teams to a different level,” Gilkey said. “We’d have 50 to 60 kids out for football, and that’s all to him. The kids knew that he cared, but worked hard and had a good time. It just says a lot about him when I’d go to AD meetings throughout the state, and others were blown away that we’d have that many kids out. But it was a testament to him.”

Even as recently as last week, Tefft was still thinking of others.

“I was at some Inland Empire League meetings in Coeur d’Alene the day they moved him (from the hospital to hospice),” Driskill said. “After I was done, I went to see him, and the first thing he wanted to talk about was football and hunting. It was crazy. It was just the same old Craig. I really don’t know how big that church is, but it better be very big. His impact in this area is very huge.”

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for The Press. He can be reached by telephone at 208-664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @JECdAPress.